- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Custom avatars are on a LOT of forums, but Bungie gets a ton of traffic and people would upload nasty pictures.
However, Mythic members are low in number (only 200 or so) and they have proven that they are trustworthy enough too get something special such as a "Custom Avatar". They already have a nice blue bar, I don't think a "custom avatar" is going too be that big of a deal. I highly doubt they would upload something innapropriate (that would be idiotic). They have earned Bungie's trust, so they ought too get it.
This way regular members are encouraged too not get black listed, and too not do anything dumb at all.
nice post, naku. i think that we could get into an interesting discussion about trust and how it relates to member titles, but i will not get into that here.
as far as i can see, no matter what the rating system is called and no matter what titles are used, the member titles do not indicate much in terms of value, any value, including trust. we can swap out the bnet titles with '*', '* *', '* * *', etc., and nothing would change. if a person were to earn one star, two stars, three stars, or how ever many stars, it just indicates that he has met some arbitrarily selected criterion. i do not know what they use at mlg, but i suspect that it would be the same case with their titles.
since some titles are seen as more important that others (heroic is better than member, legendary is better than heroic, and so on) by members, value becomes an issue. it seems that many members think that the titles indicate some sort of value. the folks at bungie have spoken of 'trust', but i find that an odd word to use in this context. as far as i am aware, earning these titles does not involve members being trusted more in any meaningful sense. with what are they entrusted? the titles do not appear to have anything to do trust, they just involve labels used to identify members who have been selected to get a few perks.
Isn't that how the Halo 3 rank system works as well? It isn't really a "perk" (every forum on the internet practically has this "feature). The avatar thing isn't really all that special. Its not a "uber reward" or something like that. Its (IMO) more like you proved you won't upload a picture of you own ass by not getting black listed for like 4 years or something like that, so you probably won't be stupid and try too upload a picture of your ass. And yes the titles have NOTHING to do with post quality.
But if you make high quality posts, and haven't proven yourself to be trustworthy (by being blacklisted, etc) who is too say you won't upload a high quality picture of your own ass?
[Edited on 02.19.2008 10:17 AM PST]